In collaboration with SE Germany

Taught in English, translated live to German

Gender Diversity and Somatic Practice

“If you want to improve the world, start by making people safer.” - Dr. Stephen Porges

In somatic experiencing we strive to offer relational conditions towards healing and physiological safety. Offering ‘safe’ presence requires us to expand our understanding of clients who come from different backgrounds than ourselves. When most of us have been taught to believe that gender is binary male/female, how do we enlarge our capacity and beliefs when transgender, non-binary and gender non-conforming clients contact us for our services. How do we create a ‘safe and informed space’ for these clients in our practice or choose to refer them out if our bias is getting in the way?

Transgender, gender non-conforming and non-binary people have resilient nervous systems in the face of historic discrimination and ongoing marginalization. Nervous systems which experience ongoing trauma of oppression require a different approach for somatic work. We will explore what it means to work physiologically with the impacts of chronic social trauma. Long term fight/flight/freeze adaptive management strategies are necessary for safety in the face of a daily transphobia. How do we work skillfully with these complexities?

This workshop will offer you an orientation to gender diversity, an overview of pronoun use and increase your professional competency to work with trans, non-binary and gender non-conforming clients.

This workshop will offer a mix of didactic education, dyads, triads and Q&A.

We welcome you to this workshop if you:

• Are open to learning about gender diversity

• Come with an open mind and heart

• Are willing to look at the biases you have learned about trans people

• Have a desire to create a more inclusive practice